Excerpt from the Book

As the last of my players trudged out of the locker room, two dusky
rays from high in the Canton Memorial Field House rafters cut
through the silent darkness, casting a surreal spotlight at the center of
the court where ninety minutes earlier there had been pandemonium—
an unbridled celebration three years in the making. Some of the silence
from my usually lively group was indicative of exhaustion—physical and
emotional. But it was also a product of the fact that all of us were still
trying to comprehend the fact that we had been a part of perhaps the most dramatic ending in the history of any high school basketball
championship game this side of Hoosiers.

I know that sounds like hyperbole, but I have spoken to hundreds
of people who witnessed that game on March 10, 2007—some I know
very well and some complete strangers—and a majority say it was the
most extraordinary ending to any game they have ever seen. Of course
the readers can ultimately decide the game’s place in the annals of dramatic
endings when they read the specifics later in the book—or they
can go to You Tube and watch the last 30 seconds of overtime and decide
now. Either way, that’s not really the point to sharing the story. In retrospect,
the trip we earned on that night to Ohio’s Division-II “Sweet
16” was actually secondary to what came next.

Dragging our feet across the court toward the exit that led to our
team bus, the entire group—players and coaches—stopped in unison at
center court as if some unseen force within the dim rays of light were
holding us there. At first everyone seemed to simply be taking one final
look around the arena we had just conquered; then, the moment turned
into one of the most special I have ever spent as the leader of a program.

As the rest of us huddled, bent down on one knee, held hands, and
bowed our heads, Mike Husted—my assistant in charge of our post
players, one of my best friends in the world and a minister by trade—
offered an impromptu offering of thanks. The half-court prayer was
not witnessed by anyone outside of our basketball family—with the
possible exception of a custodian working in the recesses of the upper deck of the two-tiered venerable Field House—but it was one of the
most authentically spiritual experiences of my life. Here was a group of
‘average kids’ who had fought through a rebuilding project—one that
included two seasons of struggling that would have caused many high
school athletes to find a new hobby—and stuck together to realize a
great vision. The moment was anything but average.

Yes, the winning was intoxicating, but I knew something much
stronger than winning had brought us to that moment. It was the relationships
we had built and the growth of the players into young men
during the journey that turned the night into a script straight from
heaven. For the first time in my career, I fully realized the gravity of my
responsibility as the leader of a public high school basketball program.

As we broke our ‘family’ huddle and continued to the exit, my top
assistant—and one of my best friends in the world—Tim Vick said, “Matt,
you blew it. You should have written a book about how you rebuilt this program,
because tonight would have been the perfect ending.”

Little did Tim know it then, but his comment was the perfect push
at the perfect time. It was a real-life rags-to-riches story—complete
with the made-for-television ending—leading to an era of success born
out of the hard work and perseverance of hometown kids that truly lifted
an entire community. With that little push from Tim Vick, I decided to
go to work in the spring of 2007 organizing years of self-reflective writing
with the idea that I would, perhaps, write a book.

Early in the process, I realized there wouldn’t be much of an audience
outside the Fairless community for a book solely about my 2007
team’s ‘Rockyesque’ rise to a “Sweet-16”. Likewise, I knew I didn’t have
a surefire formula for rebuilding every public high school basketball
program. Regardless, I held firmly to the idea there was a book idea
somewhere in the experience that would be compelling to other leaders,
so I pressed on and sought to find it.

As I continued my work, I had many people ask me—including
friends and family—what made me think my book could be successful.
Since I had never written to please anyone but myself, I didn’t initially
have an answer to that question; upon thinking it through, here’s what
I came up with:

During my career I have read every book that was written by the
legendary John Wooden. I have studied and digested the words in
books written by my favorite coach—former Chicago Bulls and Los
Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson. I have read Dean Smith’s words, Mike Krzyzewski’s words, and the words of countless other world-famous coaches from a variety of sports—all of whom coached, or are
now coaching, on a much grander stage than one upon which I am ever likely to coach.

Every one of the coaches I have read is amazing in his accomplishments
and contributions to his respective professional or collegiate
sports, and I have gained many insights from the words they put in
print. But they are also coaching in a far different environment under a
completely different set of dynamics than the ones under which I operate
as a public high school head basketball coach.

So here’s the question: Where is the book written by a public high
school head basketball coach that is geared for someone like me—a
book that gives advice and offers stories of experiences similar to mine
for me to learn from—written by someone who is dealing with essentially
the same rules and circumstances with which I deal? The answer
to that question was simple: There really is no such book.

So I set out to write a book that would be useful for coaches working
in public school programs all over the country—from head high school
coach on down to those important people who coach in youth programs.
My initial vision had me pushing the text toward a how-to manual, and I
felt like my eight years as a head coach—at the time I started this project—
and my ten years as an assistant had lent me plenty of relevant experiences
to share. But I also knew that I didn’t have all the answers. Undeterred,
I continued to work on the framework of the book while I sought a way
to make it a coaching and leadership read that would reach the masses. All
along, the answer was right in front of me.